THE GREENBACK INTERLUDE 91 



tiiorency, and you raise the price of my steers and 

 at the same time pay the public debt." "Them 

 steers " gave Chase a prominent place in politics for 

 half a decade. The most important achievement 

 of the movement at this time was the election to 

 Congress of fifteen members who were classified as 

 Nationals six from the East, six from the Middle 

 West, and three from the South. In most cases 

 these men secured their election through fusion 

 or through the failure of one of the old parties to 

 make nominations. 



Easily first among the Greenbackers elected to 

 Congress in 1878 was General James B. Weaver of 

 Iowa. When ten years of age, Weaver had been 

 taken by his parents to Iowa from Ohio, his native 

 State. In 1854, he graduated from a law school in 

 Cincinnati, and for some years thereafter practiced 

 his profession and edited a paper at Bloomfield in 

 Davis County, Iowa. He enlisted in the army as 

 a private in 1861, displayed great bravery at the 

 battles of Donelson and Shiloh, and received rapid 

 promotion to the rank of colonel. At the close of 

 the war he received a commission as brigadier gen- 

 eral by brevet. Weaver ran his first tilt in state 

 politics in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain the 

 Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in 



